Conventional multi-channel recording typically assumes a fixed loudspeaker position in a playback environment; and thus, some conventional multi-channel sound systems process and store audio signals based on standard loudspeaker configurations. Standard multi-channel loudspeaker configurations include conventional L-R stereo, 5.1 surround sound, and 7.1 surround sound, as well as others. However, in a user's acoustic space, e.g., living room, car, or the like, it is not unusual to have loudspeaker positions mismatched from those specified by the standards. Furthermore, if users want to dynamically configure a loudspeaker setup or focus on sound sources or directions, the actual setup and/or user or device selections should be considered for proper audio rendering. For example, if one loudspeaker is non-ideal for some reason such as low battery issue or non-standard location, then an audio playback system should get such information and reflect such differences in real-time for proper audio rendering.
There are some known approaches to create virtual loudspeaker locations to compensate for loudspeaker position mismatch using encoded sound sources, but these approaches may introduce unavoidable sound source location mismatch since some of them attempt to remap the processed output to create virtual loudspeakers.